Quotes About Minimalism

Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment – a little makes the way of the best happiness.

Some things just work . There is elegance in simplicity.

I houseclean my books every spring and throw out those I'm never going to read again like I throw out clothes I'm never going to wear again.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.

for my greatest skill has been to want but little.

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

I make myself rich by making my wants few.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

I heartily accept the motto, That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Simplify, simplify.

It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town... he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.

Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let our affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand...Simplify, simplify!

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

A man's riches are based on what he can do without.

Sell your clothes- keep your thoughts.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his 'furniture,' as whether it is insured or not. 'But what shall I do with my furniture?'...It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.

Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?